Reading the landscape

We’ve banned our dog Bear roaming free because of a chicken fetish, but on a recent morning he burst through the door and became a black streak moving through the woods. I deposited the toddler with Mama and gave chase. Occasionally I’d glimpse him joyfully racing back and forth through the browns and dark greens. When I finally caught up with him, he was standing over a dead buck sporting a bullet wound.

Slowly and carefully I approached, leashed him, and pulled him away. He seemed too overwhelmed by the munificence of the universe to protest as I took it away. That seems like an interesting metaphor, but for what I’m not quite sure.

Later, as I watched a downy woodpecker bob and dart around a spruce tree, I thought about the different ways we read the landscape. As a descendent of fruit-seeking primates, my eyes are drawn to remnants of color. As a domesticated human, my needs are more emotional than physical. I see beauty in the patterns made by the exposed roots of a tip-up, where a rabbit would see shelter from threats like our dogs. I can’t hear if insects are active beneath tree bark like the woodpecker can. Farther on I find piles of discarded spruce cones, their bracts closed tight but empty of seeds underneath. Around the tree trunk is a thick pile of bracts and stripped cones. I couldn’t have known that these had had seeds while the others were a waste of time just by smell, like the squirrels did.

The day was cool and overcast, with a hint of rain that never managed to fall. Distant crows cawed and squirrels rattled. Humanity moved about in the background noises of cars and planes. It was mid-day, but owls briefly sang their melancholy songs, contributing to a feeling of fading light. If humans had better senses or if the temperatures were much higher, the whole scene would have been permeated with an odor of death. Not being a scavenger, that would not be a joyous thing for me.

Water in the woods

A few days ago, I had the luxury of a long walk without the toddler or the dogs. The forest has been stripped down to the bleakness of winter, which officially starts next week. Deceptively delicate featherings of moss claimed the unwanted surfaces – rocks and wood. Reproduction is always in progress somewhere. The fawns which are forming inside does represent high maternal investment, while the clusters of seeds held aloft awaiting their turn for dispersal are much cheaper.



Insects crawled and stumbled about in the sun-warmed leaf litter. The forest was still waiting for a festive carpet of snow to shield the forest floor and its occupants from the shifting weather and temperatures (today the air is dotted with snow, making a thin covering that’s rough with leaves and spiky grass).

Casual birding is a feast or famine enterprise depending on where the mixed feeding flocks are foraging or where the crows are congregating. My walk was without avian accompaniment, until I remembered that there are almost always a few patrons at the bird feeder next door. A fact not always lost on the nonhuman forest residents who are interested in song birds. Woodpecker and nuthatches hung back in the woods, while bolder chickadees shuttle back and forth through the yard. Then some titmice appear. To me, titmice suggest mini jays in attitude and headdress.

In late fall and early spring I can almost convince myself that green is a shade of brown. Moss, ferns, and perennial plants abound, but the listless leaves of the latter two manage to suggest barely more life than the brittle goldenrods, now cast in bronze and topped with wool. Our evening walks sometimes spook turkeys from their roosts high in the trees. Heavy wing beats and crashing branches draw my eyes up for a glimpse of large bodies in silhouette. Day walks pause when the dogs notice the spectral gray squirrels floating up trunks in complete silence. When I walk without the dogs, I hear the squirrels cry and quarrel among themselves. Sporadic crow conventions convene in the back woods and add bleak vocals to the gray and brown scenery.

We’re in the midst of hunting season. The heavy fire days are holidays and weekends, but we’re always a little tense because of the ever present possibility of isolated shots. Not as tense as the deer. One morning we found bright blood splattered on brown leaves by the driveway, evidence of a wound which we assumed to be hunting related. The deer move more quietly than squirrels, and what we do see of them tends to be gray patches moving through thick curtains of intervening trunks.

This week I had a short time available to walk through a wildlife preserve with my camera. I rounded a corner to find two mother deer with their nearly-grown fawns grazing by the side of the path. With slow movements I took out my camera and stalked forward. After a few glances in my direction, most of the group resumed eating while one youngster fixed me with a picturesque gaze. I clicked – only to discover that my battery was dead. Frustrated at losing this opportunity which I knew would be near impossible on our land, I rushed back to the visitor center where I plugged the rechargeable batteries into a power outlet. For five minutes I hoped the deer hadn’t moved very far, given that my free-time was draining away. Then I grabbed all my gear and headed back out.

I shouldn’t have worried. The placid deer were now grazing right next to the building.

Colors of maturing fall

Nightshade




Yellow-rumped warbler

On a recent afternoon I enjoyed a peaceful interlude while the baby napped upstairs. I sat at the table and watched the backyard through the frame of the picture window. It was cold inside, but colder out, and everything felt slightly damp. It’s that time of year when a fire often seems overkill, but fortunately there are plenty of apples and pumpkins for baking to give the house a touch of warmth and spice.

Dampness darkened the colors outside. The understory glowed against the gray sky. Taller trees stood mostly bare, although a few canopies were still fleshed out. Sparse leaves quivered, sometimes breaking into a free-fall that attracted the eye. Similar movements resolved into birds, betrayed by speed or defiance of gravity.

After I watched for a while I realized the backyard was a busy place. A chipmunk ran across, posing for a second on the seat of an Adirondack chair. A red squirrel traveled in spurts up a tree trunk, its tail changing constantly from flat and calm to up and agitated. Suddenly it turned around and retreated for no obvious reason. Winter birds such as titmice and jays moved among the branches. A golden-crowned kinglet flitted among spent goldenrods, its flash of yellow like a visible comment. At the table I was surrounded by house noises. Propane bubbled in the workings of the refrigerator. The house spoke in a low hum like silence given voice, interrupted by one of our cats purring contentedly as she tried to either obstruct my view or step on my writing. Outside I knew I would hear the jays calling, crows cawing, and a cardinal or two chipping in the brush.

Migrating birds were still present. A gray catbird tumbled among the young trees surrounding the garden. Yellow-rumped warblers flashed their butter-butts. Two hermit thrushes patronized the large pokeweeds decorating the yard with still-green leaves and, more importantly, fat purple berries. For the migrating birds this was a respite from travel, though not without its dangers. My mother-in-law’s cats lurk in the underbrush, when they’re not hiding from the weather in her house. Our house has plenty of windows to confuse a startled bird. I wondered for a moment if the birds felt adrift in a hostile world, but “home” is a concept for those of us who build and use shelters. Even our winter residents will live a transient existence in search of food.

It would have been a great picture. The handsome mouse lay curled in on itself, like the woolly bear we showed to the baby later in the day. Its lower body was white, its sides golden brown, and a dark band followed its back. I didn’t take its picture, though, because I thought I might have killed the creature with my shovel.

I had been moving topsoil from a pile to a new flowerbed. When I dumped the load, the mouse emerged like form from nothingness. Neither fear nor breath moved the body, except… maybe there was a twitch. Or just the way one’s eyes create movement when held still for too long. I gently turned the mouse over but could discover no wounds in the supple body. Maybe the damage was all internal? As far as I knew, our mice don’t hibernate. Even our chipmunks, which do, are still foraging, filling the woods with chirrups and rustling leaves.

I could still take a picture of a dead mouse, but it doesn’t feel right. Not one that I’ve killed directly or indirectly. There’s a sense of exploitation, or disrespect. Telling the story feels different, since the part I’ve played is firmly in place rather than off screen. As for giving meaning to an accidental death, the idea of not wasting death is a human one, not a comfort to the dead creature itself. It’s interesting that humans attribute such feelings to fellow creatures, when most humans in life or death situations would happily take the bastards down with them. It is also not a woodland idea, where death is savored by assorted creatures from the large to the microscopic.

I removed the body to the base of a rotting stump. It began to pulse in on itself, but even with this sign of life (or at least electrical activity) I resisted a picture. The movement reminded me of birds that have fatally injured themselves on windows. I left it alone to its fate, because a predator is not a comfort to the dying.

It was gone when I returned, and I realized I could have taken the picture guilt-free.

Later I was able to fill in my information gaps with our reference books. The rodent was technically not a mouse but a jumping mouse. Woodland jumping mice hibernate about half the year, which would account for the early internment. They are common yet rarely seen. So I probably won’t have another chance.